Bahá’u’lláh reprimands and counsels the inhabitants of Constantinople

To the inhabitants of Constantinople, while He lived the life of an exile in their midst, Bahá’u’lláh, in that same Tablet, addressed these words: “Fear God, ye inhabitants of the City, and sow not the seeds of dissension amongst men… Your days shall pass away as have the days of them who were before you. To dust shall ye return, even as your fathers of old did return.” “We found,” He, moreover, remarks, “upon Our arrival in the City its governors and elders as children gathered about and disporting themselves with clay… Our inner eye wept sore over them, and over their transgressions and their total disregard of the thing for which they were created… The day is approaching when God will have raised up a people who will call to remembrance Our days, who will tell the tale of Our trials, who will demand the restitution of Our rights from them that, without a tittle of evidence, have treated Us with manifest injustice. God assuredly dominateth the lives of them that wronged Us, and is well aware of their doings. He will, most certainly, lay hold on them for their sins. He, verily, is the fiercest of avengers.” “Wherefore,” He graciously exhorteth them, “hearken ye unto My speech, and return ye to God and repent, that He, through His grace, may have mercy upon you, may wash away your sins, and forgive your trespasses. The greatness of His mercy surpasseth the fury of His wrath, and His grace encompasseth all who have been called into being and been clothed with the robe of life, be they of the past or of the future.” 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘The Unfoldment of World Civilization’)

Bahá’u’lláh calls to account “the Ministers of the Turkish State” and makes them aware of God’s judgment and punishment after they pass away

To the Ministers of the Turkish State, He, in that same Tablet, revealed: “It behooveth you, O Ministers of State, to keep the precepts of God, and to forsake your own laws and regulations, and to be of them who are guided aright… Ye shall, erelong, discover the consequences of that which ye shall have done in this vain life, and shall be repaid for them… How great the number of those who, in bygone ages, have committed the things ye have committed, and who, though superior to you in rank, have, in the end, returned unto dust, and been consigned to their inevitable doom!… Ye shall follow in their wake, and shall be made to enter a habitation wherein none shall be found to befriend or help you… The days of your life shall roll away, and all the things with which ye are occupied, and of which ye boast yourselves, shall perish, and ye shall, most certainly, be summoned by a company of His angels to appear at the spot where the limbs of the entire creation shall be made to tremble, and the flesh of every oppressor to creep… This is the day that shall inevitably come upon you, the hour that none can put back.” 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘The Unfoldment of World Civilization’)

Bahá’u’lláh’s warning to Sultán ‘Abdu’l-’Aziz: “Set before thine eyes God’s unerring Balance and, as one standing in His presence, weigh in that Balance thine actions every day, every moment of thy life.”

To Sultán ‘Abdu’l-’Aziz, the monarch who decreed each of Bahá’u’lláh’s three banishments, the Founder of our Faith, while a prisoner in the Sultán’s capital, addressed these words: “Hearken, O king, to the speech of Him that speaketh the truth, Him that doth not ask thee to recompense Him with the things God hath chosen to bestow upon thee, Him Who unerringly treadeth the Straight Path …Set before thine eyes God’s unerring Balance and, as one standing in His presence, weigh in that Balance thine actions every day, every moment of thy life. Bring thyself to account ere thou art summoned to a reckoning, on the day when no man shall have strength to stand for fear of God, the day when the hearts of the heedless ones shall be made to tremble.” 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘The Unfoldment of World Civilization’)

Bahá’u’lláh’s prophecy concerning the City of Constantinople

“O Spot that art situate on the shores of the two seas!” Bahá’u’lláh thus apostrophizes the City of Constantinople, “The throne of tyranny hath, verily, been established upon thee, and the flame of hatred hath been kindled within thy bosom, in such wise that the Concourse on high and they who circle around the Exalted Throne have wailed and lamented. We behold in thee the foolish ruling over the wise, and darkness vaunting itself against the light. Thou art indeed filled with manifest pride. Hath thine outward splendor made thee vainglorious? By Him Who is the Lord of mankind! It shall soon perish, and thy daughters and thy widows and all the kindreds that dwell within thee shall lament. Thus informeth thee the All-Knowing, the All-Wise.” 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘The Unfoldment of World Civilization’)

Words of Bahá’u’lláh and Christ concerning Jerusalem

Compare, moreover, these words which the persecuted Christ, as witnessed by the Gospel, addressed to Jerusalem, with Bahá’u’lláh’s apostrophe to Constantinople, revealed while He lay in His far-off Prison, and recorded in His Most Holy Book: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the Prophets and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings!” And again, as He wept over the city: “If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes. For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.” 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘The Unfoldment of World Civilization’)